Twelve Things That Are Not Booth
by sketchnurse
Summary: Twelve Things That Are Not Booth That Remind Brennan of Booth  While Miles Away From Booth . Brennan's time in the Maluku Islands, told in twelve drabbles.


Twelve Things That Are Not Booth That Remind Brennan of Booth (While Miles Away From Booth)

1.

She wonders, up in the air, miles above the clouds and just shy of the jet stream, what everyone is doing at the moment. She wonders where Angela and Hodgins had gone after saying their goodbyes. She wonders if Sweets had gone to the bar for a comforting drink. She wonders if Cam had gone right back to the Jeffersonian, trying to find something to do with herself with most of the team gone. And she wonders if Booth had lingered behind, or caught a flight back to the base ASAP. The flight attendant— she is blonde, flirtatious, _his _type?

2.

She stays in a hotel, the first night. Jakarta has its fair share of high-class hotels, a stark, dizzying contrast to poverty, the slums hidden just behind the horizon. She doesn't dwell on that, though. This will be her one night of luxury, before plunging into the jungle that awaits her in Maluku. After the long, hot flight, the Jacuzzi is a welcome comfort, one that she takes advantage of immediately. Filling the large porcelain tub up with steaming water and sweet jasmine oil, she sinks in. And for a moment, she almost sees the rubber duck and graphic novel.

3.

The car is hot, the humidity not so much sneaking into the vehicle as charging into it, full steam, unashamed of the way it makes her hair frizz up and her thighs stick to the leather seat. The driver doesn't talk much. One hand on the wheel, the other holding a lit cigarette, Guntur drives like a man on fire, and she can't blame him. The music is on full blast, and the bass rattles the speaker by her left arm, making it impossible to sit still and fall asleep. But she doesn't want to. She's Hot Blooded, burning, shaking.

4.

Her tent is the same colour as everyone else's—light tan, off-white ropes that are beginning to collect dust and dirt and the stains of the life around them. It's her second week, the ninth day of Maluku, the sights, the sensations, the pure, unadulterated difference between the air there and the air back in the country she calls home. There is no murder here, unless one reveres animal life as human (she does). There is only work, knowledge, hope of discovery. She sets out for the day with Dr. Rayanne Booth, sees the different face, says the same name.

5.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Brennan."

"Yes, you've informed me of this. Several times, in fact."

"Well, I am. Sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Neither do I. Perhaps we can explore the incident together."

"I just thought maybe we would be able to— I just got this idea that—I really am sorry."

"Are you under the impression that apologizing will somehow bring back the remains you destroyed?"

"No, I—"

"You took a risk, without weighing the outcomes, without consulting with your superiors. Your 'gut feeling' has no place here, Mr. Whittaker. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Dr. Brennan."

6.

She does not wonder why she is there. Long ago, and yet so very recently, months that had turned into passages of time that felt like decades, centuries, millennia, aeons, those months ago, she had lost control. Control of what, she still doesn't know, because knowing would have meant endeavouring to discover, through the murky paths of emotion and irrationality, but control, she had lost. Perhaps over what she felt for him, over what it did to her, the sacrifices she continued to make to keep him safe. They bring in a roast boar, one night. She does not partake.

7.

"Hey."

"…"

"Dr. Brennan, you had no way of knowing."

"…"

"There was absolutely no evidence, no indication. No one else had noticed anything out of the ordinary in Daniel Whittaker's behaviour."

"…"

"…"

"Your—"

"…"

"_Gut_ did."

"Dr. Brennan, you are in no way responsible for what might have happened to him."

"…"

"Someone so far gone in depression—"

"I feel I have not been properly supportive of him."

"You are not required to cater to the individual needs of so many people."

"Logic dictates—"

"Logic is not omnipotent. And neither are you."

"…"

"No matter how strongly you wish to be."

8.

The mud seems to become a part of her, another body tissue, another organ, even. More than that, because it belongs to everything she lives now, caked on the bodies she walks by and past and through; mud made of the dirt hiding their answers and the rain. She breathes it, through her pores, and it turns her brown, skin matching hair kissed by occasional bursts of frightening sunshine. It is the colour of the food she consumes, the colour of the smiles she sees when the natives drop off the essential supplies in weather-worn brown carts. Of his eyes.

9.

"Dr. Yamin. I… understand the grief you are going through."

"You do."

"Yes, I do. I admit to experiencing some of it myself. The loss of life, no matter how great or small, always impacts me."

"If you would forgive me for saying so, Dr. Brennan, you do not always… give the impression that this is so. Often, you seem impenetrable. A good quality, certainly, for a scientist. But we have no scarcity of scientists here. Too many, perhaps. We know, always, what we are looking to piece together. The answers. But perhaps we should really be examining the questions."

10.

The past few months: they've gone so quickly she almost wishes there were some way to completely verify that there'd been yesterday and the day before that and seventy other days between _now_, sitting around the fire in the cloak of jubilation, and the day they had set up the new camp and proceeded to work harder than they ever had before. Now it's all over; at least, that particular excavation. There are more, many more, countless sites and burial plots to uncover and insert into the maps of humanity they've been making. She's offered an American beer. She accepts.

11.

"I admit I am feeling somewhat apprehensive, Dr. Kowalski."

"Oh?"

"This…vehicle seems to be several decades old. There is evidence of oxidization nearly everywhere, and—"

"Relax, Brennan. I've been driving machines like this for the past four decades. I know how to get what we need out of her. Besides, we're just going a few miles."

"..."

"What?"

"You're driving."

"Yes."

"Was that an assumption on your part, or—?"

"I always drive."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"And is this because you're a male—?"

"I have more experience driving in these conditions, Temperance."

"..."

"..."

"Yes?"

"You amuse me, Dr. Brennan."

12.

The end; of twelve months in a place not Washington, D.C. Her hair is cut, her clothes worn, her mind sated with fabulous knowledge, satisfaction. Her face smiles now, passing from colleague to colleague, hands shaking politely, before her body is pulled into stiff hugs, French kisses on both sides of the face, arms around arms around arms and even formal bows, before joyous Japanese faces break out in grins and pull her in tight. She's been absorbed into these people, relieved of the duty towards indifference. Remembers the clasp of a hand, and how it was so much harder.


End file.
